Digital Commons Network^™

Sowing The Seeds Of Democracy: Community Gardening In Parkdale, Toronto, Rebecca Ellis

Digitized Theses

Based on research conducted in the summer of 2009 at the HOPE garden in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood, I examine how community gardening builds participatory democracy in an urban neighbourhood undergoing gentrification. The HOPE gardeners overwhelmingly were drawn to the garden as a way to connect with other people in their neighbourhood. In a complex and heterogeneous neighbourhood these gardeners were brought together in community because of, not in spite of, their differences. The garden seems also to have been a catalyst for other community gatherings in the park. I argue that the garden helps to retain the heterogeneity and complexity …